Exposed by a KOM… the story of the ‘pro’ Nick Clark

Yeah, we’ve got a handful of *good* ex pros locally (Who really are ex pros) and they’re still kicking arse at club level well into their 60’s.

How do people like this make so much money & get away with it for so long. It’s like they have the cheat codes for life

I don’t think so, tbh. He’s always on the defensive, fighting for power, influence and adulation and even at the end he’s still fighting even after he’s owned up. Even Lance Armstrong knew when to stop, eventually. I don’t think he’s in a happy place at all or has ever been.

He could have just run a successful bike shop and been happy with that like most of us would be, but he’s continually **** everything up.

Yep I think it must be a pretty hollow kind of life to live. Everything he has achieved has been built on a foundation of lies.
I wonder how long it took his wife to work out that he was a compulsive liar. Must have been pretty heartbreaking for her.

This reminds me of that equally depressing story of round the world (or Isle of Wight) yachtsman Donald Crowhurst. And I also remember from years and years ago a “semi-pro” mountain biker called Richie or something who used to bother forums with a lot of made-up stuff.

The Donald Crowhurst story was pretty depressing – I watched the film of it “The Mercy” quite recently.

I wonder how long it took his wife to work out that he was a compulsive liar

I think that this behaviour started as a result of his wife’s sudden death.

The cycling stuff seems to have done, but he was already fabricating stuff about his qualifications and military service before his wife’s death.

I think that this behaviour started as a result of his wife’s sudden death.

some his fake business stuff seems to have been from before then

Yes you’re right. It does say that in the article.

I’m sure a lot of people make shit up for their CVs, although he seemed particularly spectacular and added stuff that he knew would be virtually impossible to check (Lehman Brothers). Strikes me he had the opportunity to stop once he jacked everything in after his wife’s death to open the bike shop, but couldn’t, and coming clean would have caused narcissistic injury, so he doubled and tripled down.

Humans are curious creatures. He clearly can’t kick the habit of making himself feel good with invented status, given the gun/military stuff.

Donald Crowhurst’s story is much better told in a documentary called Deep Water, and the excellent book A Voyage For Madmen – the difference with Crowhurst, and the crux of his tragedy, is how his deception trapped him. Quite claustrophobic to watch/read about.

Wow, clearly a serial bullshitter extraordinaire.

Chapeau to the author, it’s a good read – but why oh why wasn’t it called “The Strava Swindler”?

summary for the lazy reader?

In a nutshell, bloke gets flagged for implausible Strava performance, which prompts more digging, which eventually reveals that his business and life are entirely assembled around an almost completely invented history as a former pro rider, complete with ebay-bought medals.

summary for the lazy reader?

Australian sets up bike shop in USA. Claims he used to be a minor pro back in the day. He never was. He keeps adding extra layers of bullshit to cover for the holes in his story.
Also turns out that almost everything he ever told anyone is bullshit.
His business career from before he set up the bike shop seems to be based on made-up qualifications/experience.

This is the part of the story I find worrying:

Clark went unsanctioned, and was permitted to continue coaching. Indeed, Clark told me that he was never even contacted by USAC or SafeSport: “never, ever, not once.”

Over a period stretching many months, CyclingTips has made multiple approaches to USAC’s SafeSport department for comment or information on the case.

To date, we have received no response whatsoever – including to specific questions about whether Clark had ever been investigated, whether SafeSport was aware of the complaints about him, whether anything further had been done besides taking the rider testimonials, and why the complaint was unable to proceed further.

As for the complainants, they feel that the institutions that are supposed to protect them failed to come to their aid. At the very least, they feel that a proper investigation should have been conducted, and wasn’t.

It’s difficult to disagree with that assessment.

Humans are curious creatures. He clearly can’t kick the habit of making himself feel good with invented status, given the gun/military stuff.

I don’t think that’s right. I think what he made up was done to provide success, not just some sort of perceived status.
A $1.5m salary.
A successful business that probably wouldn’t have been without the “status”.
A women’s team which needed to succeed only through his direct involvement.

He didn’t need the status, he needed to “win” the fake history is all just a route to that.

It was easier to grift than graft to achieve that success.

👍 thank you both

This is the part of the story I find worrying:

More worrying still is that it deserves a whole 3 short paragraphs but a Strava KOM gets more.

which eventually reveals that his business and life are entirely assembled around an almost completely invented history

Multiple histories, with multiple businesses and multiple lies.

More worrying still is that it deserves a whole 3 short paragraphs but a Strava KOM gets more.

That’s not really fair.

They never even found out how he DID get that KOM in the end.

True, it’s like the writer started digging, hit distracted a bit and forgot he was doing this solely because “that cheating bastard stole my KOM, I must destroy him, he will never dare to show his face on strava again!”

(FWIW it’s a remarkable thing that a piece of journalism in the cycling press is so well researched and written given its difficult enough for publications like the Washington Post)

This reminds me of my former brother in law. He wasn’t quite so successful or ambitious in his bullshitting as this guy but a similar type.

Various previous successes numerous failed marriages and unclear numbers of children before divorcing/separating moving to a new area with a new career in a different industry entirely and a new personality type.

I looked him up of Facebook and he was running a just giving page to help with his living costs due to some illness or misfortune, had a new last name and was a devout Christian.

My nephew hasn’t seen or heard from him since he could walk and he probably drove a wedge between members of my family

Absolutely no sympathy for this Nick Clark chap when someone asks him what the colour the boathouse door is.

True, it’s like the writer forgot he was doing this solely because “that cheating bastard stole my KOM, I must destroy him, he will never dare to show his face on strava again!”

My money says ebike.

He would have had access to them, as a bike shop owner. And there was some mention of his HR (or was it power?) being unusually low for the KOMs in question.

They never even found out how he DID get that KOM in the end.

ebike or towed by a car / motorbike.
That’s the daftest thing about it – everything else is just about murky enough to be taken at face value, go under the radar a bit, not be easily verifiable.
A Strava KOM on a prominent segment like that, beating current WorldTour pros instantly shouts “CHEAT!”. There’s not really an easy way around that – OK if you used an ebike it might be possible to reclassify the ride as ebike rather than bike and apologise, say it was an honest mistake etc but why do it in the first place, it’s just an instant red flag.

It’s like being a master safe cracker but being caught for speeding – something so basic that is so easy to avoid!

Wasn’t there was a bit of software on the market a few years ago that allowed you to digitally alter your times? Would explain the 136w power output but a KOM time.

Edit, yep.

https://road.cc/content/news/84868-digital-epo-smash-your-strava-times…-cheating?amp

Could well have been the Digital EPO thing yeah.

towed by a car / motorbike.

But I get the impression it was a totally solitary con? No accomplices mentioned throughout that piece?

I met a load of blokes like this whilst I was on secondment to NASA from the SAS.

A Strava KOM on a prominent segment like that, beating current WorldTour pros instantly shouts “CHEAT!”

Yeah, this is the thing that surprised me, as others have pointed out 3rd in 1993 Juniors is somewhat believable, but the KOM is crazy, if he’d had aimed for top 10, something like that maybe he’d have gotten away with it.

If it wasn’t for the meddling kid, obvs.

I don’t know if many of any followed the Hot copper link but it looks like a lot of this was already out in the open back at least as far as 2018 (in about the 5th post his fake military career etc is flagged).

So it does beg the question of who the article is written for and why.

It was written for a cycling audience because it’s an interesting story, would be my guess.

What do you think?

I’d be equally furious if someone stole one of my KOMs. I spent a lot time living near Mt Ventoux to bag that one, was hard work combined with getting an electric vehicle company off the ground (which I sold to Elon Musk). Definitely worth a year of my life to investigate that.

No mention of his former life as a celebrity hairdresser???

The gall of the guy that he’s reinvented himself within the same town! Total sociopath.

So it does beg the question of who the article is written for and why.

Actually I like the way it’s tied to a broader context:

But this is not just a tale of a single deceiver and those that fell under his spell – it’s an allegory for the global assault on truth. And that’s why it matters: if the news cycle over the past few years has shown us anything, it’s that reality itself is under siege, and the institutions that we should be able to trust are either unable or unwilling to do a thing about it.

However,

They never even found out how he DID get that KOM in the end.

This is deeply unsatisfying, and would have been a nice way to have bookended the article. I mean how do you call yourself an investigative journalist when all you’ve done is send emails to people from a hipster cafe in Melbourne?

Something doesn’t add up … so I did some digging around and it turns out the so-called ‘journalist’ Ian Treloar seems to have a parallel career ‘moonlighting’ as a geologist for numerous exploration companies since the mid-80s, when … oh hang on, that must be a different Ian Treloar.

The most disturbing stuff is Chapter 9, how he set up a women’s team. And then there’s this quote:
“She’s so ugly, she’s graceless … she looks like a mountain biker.”

Well, there goes any sympathy I had for the bastard! 😡

This story has been referenced on the Giro commentary today. They were talking about a rider in the Giro many years ago who thought he’d won the stage, put his hands up, full celebration. Turned out it was one lap to go of a finishing circuit. However for a while, he apparently had a photo of him crossing the line hands in the air to pretend he’d won. They acknowledged that the photos was presented as satire rather than an attempt to claim a victory he never had and then talked about how the internet made it impossible to hide this stuff any more then the conversation got onto this story.

desperatebicycle

“She’s so ugly, she’s graceless … she looks like a mountain biker.”

I’ve seen videos of myself riding. That poor, poor woman.

tbh im surprised they arnt more people in the world caught out like this. Ive spent most of my life thinking im the only one shit at everything only to discover so is everyone else they just lie about it.

Of course, it could be that the entire story is fiction, there is no Nick P Clark, and we’ve all wasted an afternoon reading a weird invention. 😀

summary for the lazy reader?

Boris Johnson.

It’s like being a master safe cracker but being caught for speeding – something so basic that is so easy to avoid!

Or Al Capone, and going down for tax evasion, or see above, and PartyGate.

RE the KOm thing, if you record on some other GPS system and export the GPS, its easy to edit in excel or a text file, then import in to strava as a new ride.